


(Blood in the moonlight.)

by Ravenmaster



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Author Chose Not To Use Detailed Tags To Avoid Spoilers, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 23:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7953877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenmaster/pseuds/Ravenmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is terrorizing, terrifying beauty, it is deference for the dishonorable, to watch a fallen angel drop to a Godless disgrace with burning wings and blood on its hands.</p><p>“It does look black in the moonlight,” you tell me.</p><p>It does. “So do you,” I tell you, “Pellegrini’s <em>Apollo</em>, blackened by the fires of the Great Red Dragon, and you rising from its pitch black ashes.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Blood in the moonlight.)

It is terrorizing, terrifying beauty, it is deference for the dishonorable, to watch a fallen angel drop to a Godless disgrace with burning wings and blood on its hands.

“It does look black in the moonlight,” you tell me.

It does. “So do you,” I tell you, “Pellegrini’s _Apollo_ , blackened by the fires of the Great Red Dragon, and you rising from its pitch black ashes.”

But the words falter, never reach my lips and never form to sounds, because you’re still soaring, with wind clutching desperately at wounded flesh and tangled curls - and you have grabbed me.

You have grabbed me, and we’re soaring together, falling, flying, burning, dying. You are silent. As am I. There is nothing but soaring wind and rushing blood and adrenaline. Partially, I feel acceptance. Mostly, I am in complete, and pure awe.

I can pinpoint the moment your halo shatters on the foam crown, right before the water claims you, claims us. It sticks to me like a photograph etched into my hornia by the shards of light themselves, sharp, cutting, until I too am bleeding more than blood. It’s the most beautiful thing I have seen, ever experienced; exceeds fine aged red wine, exceeds Michelangelo’s _David_ , exceeds the heart-tearing climax of Mozart’s _Lacrimosa_.

_If this is the last thing I should ever see, I can find peace with finding my end in the sea, with you._

And then, impact.

*

All is black. (Blood in the moonlight.)

*

Pain is a delicacy only found in the precious years before afterlife. It is there to be embraced, celebrated, experienced. There is only darkness surrounding me, and all I can think of, all I hope for, is that you have pain to celebrate. (My dearest Will.)

*

For a fleeting moment, I smell you, but I am not certain whether that is your aftershave mingling with the crushing, killing sea, or that you have corrupted my very being so strongly that I am now overflowing with you. You have outgrown your wing in my carefully structured memory palace, broken down every century-old wall with bare hands and brute force.

I cannot feel the wounds Dolarhyde left me, but at least the ache for you tells me I am still alive.

*

Swimming is more challenging than I remember it ever being. A sharp, searing pain shoots through my right arm nearly constantly; possibly sprained, broken more likely, in a feeble attempt to break the water before my head would. It is motionless, useless in swimming, so I clench my jaw and try not to waste breath on a sound when I press it against the bullet wound instead. In open water, there is no way of telling how much blood I have already lost.

It could be mere drops. It could be a gallon, I’ve lost to the sea. It could be, still, my life. I can still lose. With this kind of pain, the chances are high.

The pain is incomprehensible. “You’re alive,” I hear you say. Faintly, through ragged and gurgling breaths. I can’t see you, can’t turn around to watch, but the sound is enough to encourage me to hook the arm with the hurt wrist around yours and keep on going. You cough violently, and I know that your lungs are burning as much with water and fire as mine are.

The pain is incomprehensible. We are alive.

*

There is a beach in sight, finally. My arm is screaming with pain as we wash ashore, as is my mind, but I feel your weight pressing in the crease of my elbow, so all the sounds I allow myself to make are soft grunts as I drag us both to dry land.

It is still night, and there is no sun to dry our clothes. We simply lay down there, soaked, listening to each other’s ragged breathing. The moon’s pale light illuminates your icy cold fingers, until they’re almost angelically white.

Almost. Not quite. An angel no more.

“The light suits you,” I tell you. My voice almost gives in halfway through, but I manage. You don’t look at me; your eyes are wide open, fixed on the starry night above.

Then it strikes me. “It suits us,” I correct myself, but cannot bring myself to follow your gaze and look up at the heavens instead. There would be no point, since Heaven’s most faceted angel has already made its way to Earth, right next to me, laying by my side as my equal.

From the corner of my eyes, I could swear I see you smile.

*

You find the cabin before I do, turn my attention to it when the blood loss blurs the edges of my sight.

It’s not large. In fact, it’s very clearly too cramped for two people, let alone injured people who need a place to recover, but it appears to be vacant and it feels like a Godsend. Once I have managed to break through the door (badly oxidized hinges, it was only a matter of time until it was going to collapse by itself), the strong urge to find the nearest bedroom and collapse somewhere soft and comfortable grabs me by the throat. It’s disorientingly overwhelming, and I nearly feel my knees buckle (burning limbs; my heart is pumping acid around and it’s eating through my muscles, my bones, every important tissue). Time is running out.

The bathroom is immediately to the left-hand side, and it only takes about a minute to find the first-aid kit. Cleaning the wounds barely seems to help, although I do try, so eventually I decide that enough is enough and put the bandages on just tightly enough to keep the right amount of pressure on them. It’s a struggle, with only one functioning hand, and by the time I’m finished, it has become more and more challenging not to give in, find a bed somewhere and fall asleep.

“You still need to patch up that hand,” you remind me. I turn around; you’ve been watching me, apparently, with poorly done stitches holding your cheek together. There are bandages wrapped around your torso too. We match. “It’s your dominant hand, and you can’t risk letting the bones heal in this position.”

I ignore you, politely. “I will redo your stitches tomorrow. These are going to give you a terrible scar.”

You don’t move your mouth, most likely not to pull too hard at your work of threaded art, but the smile still lingers in your eyes. “I know. One for the collection.”

“This one will be in sight constantly,” I argue. “If we want to start afresh, it’s best to blend in as smoothly as possible.”

You tap your fingernails against the edge of the sink, as you lean with your legs crossed against the wall. Your hair has dried up again, strands curling at a wilder angle than before with the help of sea salt, face paler than I have ever seen it, but you also look strangely at peace. As if you have fought your way to stand above your pain. Then, you look up again, and there is a softness in your eyes that I have not seen as much as I hoped so far. It’s a treat. “Wedding bands are in sight constantly, and people wear those with pride.”

My mouth is dry, my chest hot, but my composure still collected, mostly. The edges of my sight are still blurred and my balance is off, but as long as I lean against the sink, I am fine. “Do you consider these scars your wedding band, Will?”

“I consider them the closest thing to it. Perhaps even closer,” you tell me, without hesitation, without fear. “Does that bother you?”

Does it bother me? 

You stare at me, with a spark in your eyes, wild curls and torn clothing as a Greek statue from the Hellenistic period turned to life by the Gods, with deep cracks in the smooth marble, the victim of abrasion, time, and the violence of life. You are no longer the man of potential, the personified rough diamond you were when I met you. You were cracked open, shattered, but you have rebuilt yourself in a way I only dared to hope for in my dreams. You are the most magnificent thing I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and you ask me if it bothers me.

Slowly (carefully, steadily), I step forward, until my hand clenching the sink is nearly touching yours. My head his heavy, my heart even heavier (in the back of my mind: pulse is faint, legs are trembling - I need to lay down), as I lean in, closer, closer, wondering how close you would let me be.

You don’t move. You simply stare.

“I am honored,” I tell finally tell you, lips nearly brushing against the stitched wound itself, as if kissing the ring of an emperor. You’re still cold, we both are, but I still catch the faintest whiff if your scent as I inhale. We stand like that forever, touching but not quite, and the heaviness in my heart turns into an ache. You are the first person to have such a strong grip on me, and at times, I am convinced your grip is so tight it might kill me.

By the time I open my eyes, you have left. The room is empty, and so am I.

*

Three days later, you are nowhere to be found. There is, however, a note left on my bedside table, in your handwriting:

_You need to bury it._

‘It’, in this case, being the carcass of a stray dog about fifty yards away from the cabin. I first noticed it during our search for a place to stay, a place to recover. If it rots (which it already is, undoubtedly), the smell will draw attention of passersby, and may corrupt our plan to stay hidden until we’re strong enough to move. It needs to be taken care of.

The journey there is frankly terrible, mostly because I feel terrible. I am feverish, off-balance, and when I get to the bathroom to finally wrap my wrist, I make it to the toilet only just in time before I get sick. It is humiliating (I haven’t been sick since I was fifteen - never allowed myself to be, even when I felt my stomach turn), to say the least, but I have to. For both of us. 

It needs to be buried.

Fifty yards, a steadily growing downpour on the sand. The weather is not in my favor. Nothing appears to be, today.

(It’s a small price to pay in exchange for you, I tell myself, because it is. I would happily bury a thousand dogs with two broken wrists, in rain and snow and scorching sun for you, if I had to.)

“This shouldn’t have happened,” I hear you say, and when I abruptly turn my head to look at you, the world spins around me. “Slow, Hannibal. You look terrible.”

I feel terrible. It’s freezing cold, but my skin is burning and both my arms hurt for different reasons. I have suppressed being sick twice in the past time (minutes? Hours? I have no idea - the sun is hidden too far behind the clouds to make any sense of passing time). I have a gut feeling that I might end up falling in the grave I am digging myself.

“It is indeed a shame,” I say to you, because even as the person you are today, the person you have become, I know that it is a waste of time to argue with you about the value of animal life. It does not take a therapist to see the mourning in your eyes as you look down at the rain-drenched sand and the soaked, black hair of the creature in it. 

The longer I stare at it, the more I begin to sympathise with your pain. “Indeed a shame,” I repeat, softer, more to myself. 

“We should give it a proper goodbye,” you say. I nod. My head is heavy; I do not know what to say, what to think. My skin is burning, and for one terrifying moment, I have no idea which way the cabin is. I have no idea what I was doing just a moment ago.

I am blessed to have you. “Close the grave.”

So I do, closing off hours and hours of impossibly exhausting physical labor with one bare hand. I can feel the sand dig under my fingernails, stick to my already torn and worn shirt, spread over my clammy skin and into my eyes until they water. It takes an hour, maybe two, but finally the grave is closed and I collapse on top of it. 

You sit across from me, in cross-legged position, and I am not certain whether I am more reassured or humiliated to have you with me while I am in this state. Possibly both.

“Maybe we could find a rock somewhere,” you say, not paying attention to my ragged breaths or occasional gag. I am grateful for that. I truly am. “As a tombstone of sorts.”

I force myself to inhale three times before I reply. The wound in my stomach hurts every time. “I believe the point of this was not to attract attention to it.”

I lift my head to look up at you (for as far as the blurred sight allows me to - at this point I’m not certain whether that it is due to the sand in my eyes or the feisty infection I am now certain I am battling), but you don’t look back. You look worse than moments before, or perhaps I didn’t see you clearly enough moments before, because your skin is paler, almost waxy, and your eyes are sunk a little deeper into your skull, it seems. Still, judging from the way you sit, you are still doing much better than I am.

“Tomorrow,” you decide, and you stand up again. “We can come back tomorrow.”

You tower over me and you look down, but you never offer me your hand as I struggle to stand up. You know I wouldn’t take it.

And so we walk (stumble, drag) back, all fifty yards, until my head hits the pillow and I am gone.

*

The following day, the fever is worse, and you are gone, so I force myself to rummage through the cabinets, heat up the canned beans I find there, drink a few glasses of water (slowly), and eat half of the atrocious meal. If I hadn’t already been nauseous to start with, I would have been now.

I leave the other half for you, in case you come back hungry (undoubtedly, after all these days), with another glass of water and another note, in my left-handed handwriting. It is terrible, barely readable, but the resemblance to yours is so striking that I am certain you won’t have any issues with it.

_I promise that there are better meals waiting for us in the future, mylimasis._

*

(You never ate those beans. I cannot blame you.)

*

Time loses track of me, of us, until we’re floating between days and nights. Sunlight and moonlight are equally scorching, and only the absence of both offers peace.

As of late, you rarely speak. You only watch me, sitting cross-legged on your side of the bed, as I sleep or as I lay wide awake, not quite strong enough to get up and take care of myself, but not quite weak enough to knock myself unconscious either.

I am in agony. (Which means I am alive. I embrace it.)

“Not for long,” you tell me, one day. “Your gunshot wounds are severely infected.”

They are. I can smell them.

“You will die without proper antibiotics.”

I will. At this point, my chances are already slim, even if I do get proper medical care. 

“You know what you have to do.”

I do.

I need to find a tombstone.

*

My clothes stick to my chest. Fifty yards have never been this long. (It would have helped if I had gone in the right direction right away.) You don’t hold my arm, don’t degrade me to the dying man I feel I am, but you never leave my side either.

We do find a rock, along the way, although it is too small for my taste. It doesn’t do the grave any justice, but I carry it with me anyway, because seeing it on the grave itself causes a smile to tug at your scarred cheek, and that is enough of a reason for me.

*

The sun sets. It always does.

“You are breathtaking like this.” I cannot look away, not when you’re sitting in this light, not when the sun kisses your astounding, _Apollo_ face in a way that nobody will ever see except for me. I’m afraid (terrified) that you will disappear the moment I blink.

(I now know, after these days of experience, that you might.)

In another world, I would have drawn you, my Botticelli angel, exactly as you are at that moment; your heart somewhere far away, with porcelain cracks in your skin that peeks out from torn clothes. Light seeps through the cracks as if you are about to combust with whatever you are thinking, whatever you are feeling.

(I am about to combust with you. Your light fills me, my skin feels tight, so tight.)

“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like, should things have been different?” you ask. 

“Should I have been healthy?” I fill it in. _Should I survive this?_ I silently add.

You nod. “And I.”

I close my eyes. The world spins heavily, and it surprises me, because I feel as if the world was supposed to stop spinning a long time ago. “You appear fine to me.”

I can positively sense you shaking your head. “I don’t, Hannibal. You know I don’t.”

I know. I know. (I do not want to know. Oblivion is bliss.)

When I open my eyes again, you are much paler, your eyes are sunk in much deeper, your eyes are empty. “You can’t keep me alive forever, Hannibal.”

I know. I know, I know, I know. My broken hand rests painfully on the makeshift tombstone. It hurts. It doesn’t matter.

Words are heavy on my tongue, yearning to be spoken. They are so heavy, that I have to lay down, with trembling limbs and burning fever. “I know,” I tell you, “I am very sorry.”

You don’t say ‘don’t be’, or ‘there is no point to that’, or ‘you’re forgiven’, because I know ( _I know, I know_ ) that it is unforgivable. If I cannot forgive myself, even the most delirious parts of my fever-ridden mind cannot hallucinate a version of you that would forgive me for surviving the fall that killed you.

“I miss you, my soul,” I say, as curl up on top of your grave. Dug with bare hands, in the pouring rain.

(As the heavens wept for you, my Will; I wept too.)

“I am sorry, my soul.”

(As sorry as any man could be; beyond that.)

“I have tried.”

(I have tried, from the moment I saw your lifeless body afloat in the ocean, to keep you alive. I have tried not to break as you stared up to the moon with dead eyes, I have tried not to shatter as I gave you a grave, I have tried, I have tried, because it takes you being alive to keep me from dying.)

*

All is black. (Blood in the moonlight.)

*

I lie on your grave, on your lifeless heart. The pain (I am alive) subsides.

*

(My Will, my beloved Will, I have finished trying.) 

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS: I have not read many angsty Hannibal fanfictions, so please forgive me if this plotline has been done before (hopefully not in the same way). Also, all my medical knowledge about (the symptoms of) infected wound are internet-based. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr (ravenmeister.tumblr.com) to stay updated on future fics.


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